The present invention relates to the printing arts. It finds particular application in conjunction with applying finishing instructions to a particular print job, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present invention is also amenable to other like applications where a need exists to dynamically substitute alternate handling instructions and/or associate machine or human-readable instructions with individual print jobs at compilation boundaries or other locations.
Various methods have long been used to prepare printed material in a final or finished state for a user of the material. Such finishing techniques include folding, binding, stapling, excess paper trimming, hole drilling and the like. In earlier times, and in many print shops today, the printing and the finishing steps were accomplished independent of each other. In such cases, the completed print jobs, consisting of a plurality of discrete groups of associated output sheets, are typically marked with a file or other identifier used to alert a finishing operator to the desired finishing for the print job.
Increasingly today printers are fitted with finishing terminals capable of providing a limited selection of finishing capabilities. Use of these printers can reduce the number of steps needed, i.e. the number of machines to which the print job must be transported, to complete a particular job. However, the desired finishing characteristics of the print job can sometimes lead to selection of a specific printer or reprographic device used to do the print job without consideration of that printer's capabilities apart from finishing. In other words, at times, the desired finished output determines the selection of the printer to be used instead of the printer being selected for its reprographic characteristics. This can lead to inefficient resource allocation where a high volume printer, for example, may be selected for a low volume print job, solely because of the finishing terminal attached to the high volume printer.
Indeed, a requested finishing capability may be unavailable on a particular printer/finisher machine thus delaying the print job, or the desired finishing may not be offered by a particular printer. These exemplary situations can delay the total throughput of a particular print shop in general and can delay a specific print job in particular. Accordingly, a need exists to easily modify print jobs to utilize alternate finishing instructions or off line finishing equipment.
The present invention contemplates a new and improved method and apparatus to allow finishing substitution which overcomes the above referenced problems and others.